


Alright, Sunshine?

by softestlad



Series: he is my own [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Support, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, author wish fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 01:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestlad/pseuds/softestlad
Summary: “Right,” Cain said, standing up from his booth in the Woolpack. “That’s enough.”--In which Cain is an unlikely hero, and gives Aaron and Robert's families a proper talking to.





	Alright, Sunshine?

“Right,” Cain said, standing up from his booth in the Woolpack. “That’s enough.”

Aaron looked over in his direction, barely registering him, so full of his own frenetic, prowling energy he couldn’t focus on anything else. It was like whips and lashes inside him, wild and terrifying for the fact that Aaron didn’t know when it would stop, not this time. Counselling had taught him to remember in bad moments that feelings pass, that the bad moments themselves pass. This didn’t feel like it would pass.

Not for the next twenty years or so anyway.

It was just another day in the Woolpack, every bloody person in his life forming a Greek chorus of people who just _didn’t get it. _He stormed out, the door swinging wildly behind him and his mum’s voice plaintive, conciliatory, and everything he couldn’t take right now. He was almost through the second set of doors when Cain’s voice managed to squeeze through the first, and it gave Aaron pause. He moved back towards the pub, putting his foot against the door’s bottom edge and listening.

Cain hadn’t had much to say since everything popped off with him, Nate, and Moira. Years past, maybe the village would be well in for it, Cain bulling around the place looking for a fight, looking for a life to ruin to make him feel a little less small and powerless in his own. But Aaron reckoned Cain had mellowed slightly in his old age, and had learned – if not to put a stop to fights that came looking for him, at least not to go out hunting for trouble himself. These days he seemed happy enough to scowl into a pint and not engage or be engaged by anyone. He was a miserable git, but at least he wasn’t a miserable git fixed on getting into any more trouble. He had the boys to think about now. They needed him now more than ever.

So, with all this in mind, Aaron was surprised to hear Cain carry on.

“Leave him be, Chas. And the rest of you n’all, it’s not like you’ve nowt useful to say to him.”

“Eh? We’re his family. We’re trying to get him through this,” Chas said. Aaron could practically hear her hands on hips posture.

“Drag him through it, more like,” Cain said.

“I – I don’t think it’s your place, telling Chas how to eh, eh, parent – “ That would be Paddy, walking up to the cliff’s edge. “Right, right. Eh. Of course, you say what you like, em.” _And walking right back the way he came, _Aaron thought, shaking his head. It’d be funny if he didn’t feel angry enough to peel himself out of his own skin.

“Well you lot are, that’s for sure.”

“I’m not. I’m not sure what you mean, mate.” Paddy trying for jocular landed about as well as Aaron would have expected. Lead. Balloon.

“I bet you’re not. You’re all acting like he’s meant to be Miss Congeniality, like Sugden never existed.”

“That’s not true!” Chas said. “We’re just trying to get him to see that what’s happened – it’s the right thing. He’s got a life, a family – “

“No, Chas, he _had _those things. With Robert. I know you had your issues with him, but I thought you got on in the end. And now it’s like you want Aaron to just dust himself off and move on.”

“Of course we don’t,” Paddy again. Aaron stood stock still behind the door, listening, eyes fixed on the pattern in the wallpaper outside the loos.

“Then why don’t you act like it, eh?” Aaron heard a quiet clack, a pint glass set down on the bar. His close focus made it all the more jarring when Diane started in, her voice about as loud and about as welcome as microphone feedback.

“We all sympathise with Aaron, we’ve lost Robert too – “

Cain snorted.

“What’s that face for? That’s my brother – “ Vic joined in, only for Cain to cut across her.

“For all you’ve acted like it. Listen I’ve never made a secret of me and Sugden hardly being best mates, but you all wonder why Aaron’s walking around with a face like a wet weekend like he’s meant to be doing owt else. His husband’s in prison,” Aaron swallowed, the lump in his throat crushing his windpipe, hot tears springing to his eyes. He was instantly tired. He was so _tired _of crying. Of missing him. “And if Robert had one thing going for him it’s that no one loved our Aaron like he did. And our Aaron was just the same. _Is _just the same.”

“We know,” Paddy said, “And that’s why we’re, we’re, we’re _glad _that he did the right thing by Aaron in the end.”

“Why don’t any of you try doing the right thing by Aaron then. Give Robert a break while he’s banged up, and stop telling Aaron how happy he should be that his husband’s rotting – “

“We’re not!”

“Listen, Aaron’s a grown man. And it’s not just hard on him, it’s hard on all of us,” Diane broke in. “He can’t keep lashing out – he’s not the only one who misses him, and we’ve all got our own troubles to be getting on with. Chas and Vic both have the boys to worry about.”

“Right. What was it you were saying earlier Diane? That Robert made his choice? That Aaron should just _accept_ it?” Aaron heard the sound of glass sliding over wood. “Top me up there, Chas, think I deserve one on the house. Never thought I’d be able to say I’m the only one in a room being _sensitive _to someone’s _feelings._”

Aaron breathed a faint laugh behind the door. He could picture the repulsed twist to Cain’s mouth, the sharp arch and furrow of his eyebrows.

“Think over since they got back together. Attached at the sodding hip. They live together, take care of Liv together, they work at that poxy yard together. Stop telling Aaron to be chuffed over his life. _Robert_ was his life.”

“_Robert _should have thought of that before he killed a man,” Chas said. Aaron felt it like a knife through the ribs. When Robert had told him the full run down of the events of that day, the rest of the village playing at a dress up of harder times while the hardest times banged down the Mill door, he didn’t mention any time for thinking. He told Aaron about the bragging. The goading. The threat that if Lee Posner had walked away that day, that there would be another Vic out there, another person suffering the way she was. There wasn’t any thinking on Robert’s part. There was less than five seconds, weeks of built up powerlessness and pain, and a garden shovel. And their life together. Ruined.

“Beg pardon, I’d have brought the tissues if I thought we were going to get teary over someone less than pondlife,” Cain snapped. “I seem to remember a time not too long ago where you were sending me out to do something similar. What was it you said – “

“Cain,” Chas said.

“_Do your worst,_ weren’t it?” The air quivered in the short, sharp silence that followed. “The state of you lot getting weepy over a rapist. You'll be calling Marlon a murderer next time he takes the rubbish out.” Aaron couldn’t see, couldn’t make himself look, eyes screwed tight and hoping against hope no one in the pub had to take a slash any time soon. Tears tracked a path down his face, meeting under his chin like a tender stroke of sadness. Of anger. “Chas, you and Paddy have each other, and a new sprog. Vic’s got hers and no bother from Norman Bates and his mad mother, and Diane – well. I don’t know what Diane’s got other than a mouth on her – “

“Oi!”

“But Robert’s got a stretch for doing the world – and you – a favour. And Aaron’s got the rug pulled out. Again.”

Aaron gripped the brass door handle hard enough that he wouldn’t be surprised to pull away and find an impression of his palm in the metal. It was the only thing keeping him up. He couldn’t listen to this any more, he needed air, he needed… he knew what he needed. And that he couldn’t have him.

Aaron stumbled out to the benches, ignoring the odd looks from a few passing villagers. He sucked in cold air, air that was slowly filling with Christmas – the first of many Christmases apart, heaving and wiping his face with his hands, letting the metal of his wedding ring catch over and over against his skin. Leaving tingling scrapes. He wanted to feel it.

Wanted to feel anything but this.

*

It wasn’t long after that Cain emerged from the Woolpack, hands in his jacket pockets and shoulders hiked up high. He clocked Aaron at the picnic benches, ambled over like he’d nothing better to do. Maybe he didn’t.

“Alright, sunshine?” Cain tucked his chin into his chest, standing in front of Aaron, visibly making the decision not to comment on what Aaron guessed were pretty obvious tear tracks.

“Beltin’” Aaron said, wishing he had a pint to nurse, something to do with his hands.

“Well with a cheer squad like them why wouldn’t you be?” Cain eyed him speculatively. “They do care about you y’know. They just don’t get it.”

“What’s to get?”

“How a Dingle loves, yeah? That _it _person.”

“Check you, you actually listened.”

“Well talking sense is a rare trick from you, thought I’d better get the most out of it.” Cain raised his eyebrows at him and Aaron dropped his head, exhaling with just enough humour to be able to call it a laugh. Just about. “Some people’d probably say we’re lucky. To’ve found ‘em.”

“Some idiots.”

Cain huffed.

“Thanks,” Aaron said, clearing his throat. “For sayin’ that stuff in there.”

“It’s been a while since I got to tell Diane to shove a sock in it, reckon I was due. And she was.”

“Still, I – “ Aaron forced himself to look Cain in the eye. Aaron’s family was in prison. But he could do with remembering he wasn’t _alone_, even if he didn’t half feel it. “Thanks.”

Cain shrugged. “Buy me a pint, eh. Another time though, I’m off out. World don’t revolve around you, does it.” Aaron shook his head, getting closer and closer to a real laugh, to a smile that met his eyes. It felt painful, vaguely traitorous. But necessary, maybe.

“Don’t let me stop you if someone else has an appointment with your ugly mug,” Aaron stood from the bench, legs feeling just about up to the task of taking him home. “Reckon I’ll survive without you somehow.”

“Sounds about right,” Cain said, clapping a hand on Aaron’s shoulder and offering a squeeze that Aaron would bet he’d deny under oath. “If anyone could, eh?” Cain lightly shoved him, and Aaron walked backwards a few steps, flicking Cain a grateful nod before spinning on his heels, breathing the air that threatened Christmas.

_If anyone could._ He could. He would survive.

Every minute, every day, every year, he would survive. Crossing days off the calendar.

Until home came home to him.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) cain and aaron are one of my gave relationships. their respective One True Loves have been ruined. i wanna see it play out.  
2) i loathe vic and diane. i always try to resist instinctive dislike of lady characters, bc misogyny is a yeerk in everyone's ear but fucK if i don't just. hate. them.  
3) i love chas and aaron. also one of my faves, such a powerful relationship. but if she and paddy continue the way they are now, they'll not only be getting on my wick, they'll be destroying the concept of having a wick in the first place.
> 
> basically, i know this is self indulgent as all get out, but i'm so incredibly frustrated by how canon is being written rn. so, i know this won't be for everybody, or maybe even anybody but me, but i needed to write it, so i might as well share it.


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